be construed to include an emancipated
slave, is omitted; and the privilege is confined to _citizens_ of the
State. And this alteration in words would hardly have been made, unless
a different meaning was intended to be conveyed, or a possible doubt
removed. The just and fair inference is, that as this privilege was
about to be placed under the protection of the General Government, and
the words expounded by its tribunals, and all power in relation to it
taken from the State and its courts, it was deemed prudent to describe
with precision and caution the persons to whom this high privilege was
given--and the word _citizen_ was on that account substituted for the
words _free inhabitant_. The word citizen excluded, and no doubt
intended to exclude, foreigners who had not become citizens of some one
of the States when the Constitution was adopted; and also every
description of persons who were not fully recognized as citizens in the
several States. This, upon any fair construction of the instruments to
which we have referred, was evidently the object and purpose of this
change of words.

To all this mass of proof we have still to add, that Congress has
repeatedly legislated upon the same construction of the Constitution
that we have given. Three laws, two of which were passed almost
immediately after the Government went into operation, will be abundantly
sufficient to show this. The two first are particularly worthy of
notice, because many of the men who assisted in framing the
Constitution, and took an active part in procuring its adoption, were
then in the halls of legislation, and certainly understood what they
meant when they used the words "people of the United States" and
"citizen" in that well-considered instrument.

The first of these acts is the naturalization law, which was passed at
the second session of the first Congress, March 26, 1790, and confines
the right of becoming citizens "_to aliens being free white persons_."

Now, the Constitution does not limit the power of Congress in this
respect to white persons. And they may, if they think proper, authorize
the naturalization of any one of any color, who was born under
allegiance to another Government. But the language of the law above
quoted, shows that citizenship at that time was perfectly understood to
be confined to the white race; and that they alone constituted the
sovereignty in the Government.

Congress might, as we before said, have authorized t